Pynchon Wiki: Against the Day

Japanese Translation Now Available.

The Japanese translation of Against the DayGyakko is now available in two volumes from Shinchosha. The translation is by Yoshihiko Kihara.

Inherent Vice Wiki is Now Live!

The wiki for Inherent Vice is now live, with full index of characters, real and fictional, plus page-by-page annotations, reviews ... the works.

"Against the Day" show by Belgian painter

Belgian painter Luc Tuymans, one of the art world's brightest stars, opened "Against the Day," a major installation of recent work at the Wiels Contemporary Arts Center in Brussels. About the show's title, Tuymans says, "The title goes back to the last book of Thomas Pynchon, the inventor of paranoia in American literature, and one of my favorite writers." Read the Wall Street Journal article...

Infinite Jest Wiki is up and rolling.

Check it out... (To become a contributor, you'll have to register separately from the Pynchon wikis.)

Against the Day ... the CD!

by the band Land of Kush, on Constellation Records. Release date is 3/9/09. Read more... and Listen!

French Translation Now Available

The French translation of Against the Day is now available. The translation is by Claro. Interesting cover art.

Pagination Blues?

The UK paperback edition of Against the Day has a markedly different pagination from the original hardback editions  it is 1220 pages, up from the original 1085 pages.Read on...

How to Use this Wiki

There are two major ways to use this wiki. The first is the Against the Day Alphabetical Index, used to keep track of the myriad characters, real and imagined, as well as events, arcana, and lots of other stuff. The second is the Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page, which allows the reader to look up and contribute allusions and references while reading the book, in a convenient and spoiler-free manner. These two sections are so far almost entirely different, but we're working on integrating them.

Apart from those, it's up to you! In addition to your own research, feel free to add relevant information or interpetations gleaned from other Against the Day online discussions such as the Pynchon-L mailing list, The Chumps of Choice blog, Against the Day blog, and others-- with proper attribution, of course.

Alphabetical Index

Information on the characters, events, and everything else in Against the Day, organized alphabetically:

Spoiler-free Annotations by Page

An alternate form of commentary on the text. The guiding principle of these annotations is to remain spoiler-free, so that readers can follow along without the fear that later parts of the book will be revealed.

When creating a new page, if its information pertains to one (and only one) specific Pynchon novel, please categorize it with the appropriate identifier. For example, a page pertaining to Against the Day (currently the only novel being annotated here), should use the syntax [[Category:ATD]].

To open a discussion on an individual listing of the Alpha Index, create one using the entry on Peter Tait as an example. Basically, give it a name that identifies the alpha listing (eg [[Name Discussion|DISCUSSION]]) and notice that the visible name will be "DISCUSSION" in full caps, so it stands out a bit.

Literarywiki.org - like Pynchonwiki, but for all other books. Founded by one of Pynchonwiki's early contributors.

Featured Article

It’s Just Not Cricket: Cricket as Metaphor in Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day

Peter Vernon presented this insightful paper at the Conference on Against the Day held in Tours, France, in June 2007, elucidating one of Against the Day's myriad vectors of meaning.

"It is for two main reasons, I believe, that Pynchon uses the game of cricket as a metaphor in Against the Day. First, because cricket is the Imperial game, a game exported by the British to its colonies. And, second, because cricket is a game of balance, doubles and mirror images. The off-break is exactly balanced by the leg-break; the googly by the doosra. Cricket operates in terms of mirror-images and can be seen, therefore, to connect, on a metaphorical level, with the themes of Double Refraction, the Michelson-Morley Experiment, Iceland Spar, the Zombinis and the Isle of Mirrors in Venice." ( Read on...)

Image Gallery

Below are some of the images you will find on the Against the Day Wiki.